Reporters Without Borders, a France-based non-governmental organization that defends freedom of information and freedom of the press, has for the first time created a list of 100 Information Heroes. From Japan, Yu Terasawa was among them. He is an investigative journalist and has written books exposing police corruption.

Yu Terasawa has few friends in the Japanese police. He was still a student when he began his career in journalism by exposing police corruption. More than 20 years later, about 100 agents and officers have been fired, prosecuted or subjected to disciplinary action as a result of the countless articles and books he has written on the subject.

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Even among his own colleagues, not everyone is a friend… On 28 March this year, he launched legal proceedings against the government after a law on state secrets was introduced, a major attack on investigative journalism.